In looking through various forums, there always seems to be a tendency toward and/or against "fear mongering". That is, there is the tendency to focus on disastrous stories, then leverage off those for the sake of the safety debate. Great examples of this are COB stories (which I've been really digging into lately). Then, there's the other end where it's about the fact that you can die stepping off the curb in front of a speeding meteor while getting hit by a lightning...so why worry about it?

The bottom line is that one can never "lose" the safety argument. Safety always wins. So I'm definitely not arguing AGAINST safety.

But, the question I have is this: when considering the type of sailing 99% of the people out there do, do the stats support a "fear mongering" approach to safety? Isn't this sport, all in all, really pretty safe in terms of hours put in vs. fatalities (compared to sports like rock climbing, mountain climbing, skiing, etc.)?

ADDENDUM: I'M ADDING MY POST FROM PAGE 3 WHICH BREAKS DOWN SOME OF THE USCG REPORT DATA AND THROWS IN SOME IRONY:

Oh man, I just looked through the numbers in the USCG report provided by k1vsk - and this is going to raise some hackles. First the numbers...then what "seem" to be the take-aways (up for discussion of course):

First, the Executive Summary

Quote:

• In 2008, the Coast Guard counted 4789 accidents that involved 709 deaths, 3331 injuries and approximately $54 million dollars of damage to property as a result of recreational boating accidents.
• Over two-thirds of all fatal boating accident victims drowned, and of those, ninety (90) percent were not wearing a life jacket.
• Only ten percent of deaths occurred on boats where the operator had received boating safety instruction.
• Seven out of every ten boaters who drowned were using boats less than 21 feet in length.
• Careless/reckless operation, operator inattention, no proper lookout, operator inexperience and passenger/skier behavior rank as the top five primary contributing factors in accidents.
• Alcohol use is the leading contributing factor in fatal boating accidents; it was listed as the leading factor in 17% of the deaths.
• Eleven children under age thirteen lost their lives while boating in 2008. 63% of the children who died in 2008 died from drowning.
• The most common types of vessels involved in reported accidents were open motorboats (43%), personal watercraft (23%), and cabin motorboats (15%).

Now for some crunching - which reveals some very interesting stats:

Quote:

Of the 709 deaths, here are the top 5 vessel types, making up 614 of that total (leaving 95 deaths for other vessel types):
• Open Motorboat
• Personal Watercraft
• Cabin Motorboat
• Canoe/Kayak
• Rowboat
(note sailboats don't make the cut, but rowboats and canoes do!)

So if you drill down on that a bit, look at the overall accident numbers for boat types:

Pretty small number for sailboats - considering how many total are out on the water crusing, racing, etc. Now what about the deaths involved with these accident figures - and the causes?

Quote:

Deaths by vessel type:
All sail (25 - 50%+ by drowning)

So out of 709 total deaths, 25 of those happened on sailboats (10% of total sailing accidents involved a fatality). And 40% or so of these deaths were by means other than drowning (the thing we all associate as the most likely threat to our lives) - knocking that number down to 15.

Now, initially I was going to say that because we can't really get actual "speed" out of our boats, that we were off the hook on that. But, other numbers showed that most fatalities happen at low speed! Interesting.

Now let's look at the bodies of water and conditions that are most likely to lead to these fatalities (this is where it starts getting ironic - and I love irony):

So, taking these statistics into account, am I correct in surmising that,

[IRONY ALERT] statistically speaking, any sailor's best chance at survival is to get 10 or so hours of some informal training on how to sail, take a 40' vessel into the open ocean in rough to very rough conditions, wear a pfd, don't drink, stay on the boat (regardless of make or year), sail REALLY fast, and, in all probability, you'll be just fine?

It seems the most dangerous sailing out there is sailing a small boat on a sheltered body of water in calm conditions. Could that be right?

Surely that's not it.
[/IRONY ALERT]

I just want to make it known what we lake sailors have now been vindicated. We are truly the gnarliest sailors around. Those chumps that make fun of our "duck ponds" just don't have the numbers to back them up.

Thoughts?

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